Journal Article

Global patterns of aegyptism without arbovirus

Kraemer, Moritz U. G., Olson, Mark F., Hamer, Gabriel L., Juarez, Jose G., Messina, Jane P.

2021

Overview

The world’s most important mosquito vector of viruses, Aedes aegypti , is found around the world in tropical, subtropical and even some temperate locations. While climate change may limit populations of Ae . aegypti in some regions, increasing temperatures will likely expand its territory thus increasing risk of human exposure to arboviruses in places like Europe, Northern Australia and North America, among many others. Most studies of Ae . aegypti biology and virus transmission focus on locations with high endemicity or severe outbreaks of human amplified urban arboviruses, such as dengue, Zika, and chikungunya viruses, but rarely on areas at the margins of endemicity. The objective in this study is to explore previously published global patterns in the environmental suitability for Ae . aegypti and dengue virus to reveal deviations in the probability of the vector and human disease occurring. We developed a map showing one end of the gradient being higher suitability of Ae . aegypti with low suitability of dengue and the other end of the spectrum being equal and higher environmental suitability for both Ae . aegypti and dengue. The regions of the world with Ae . aegypti environmental suitability and no endemic dengue transmission exhibits a phenomenon we term ‘aegyptism without arbovirus’. We then tested what environmental and socioeconomic variables influence this deviation map revealing a significant association with human population density, suggesting that locations with lower human population density were more likely to have a higher probability of aegyptism without arbovirus. Characterizing regions of the world with established populations of Ae . aegypti but little to no autochthonous transmission of human-amplified arboviruses is an important step in understanding and achieving aegyptism without arbovirus.

• Publisher: Public Library of Science,Public Library of Science (PLoS)
• Subject: Additives / Aedes - physiology / Aedes - virology / Aedes aegypti / Animals / Biology and Life Sciences / Climate / Dengue / Dengue - epidemiology / Dengue - transmission / Dengue fever / Dengue Virus / Dengue viruses / Deviation / Disease transmission / Distribution / Earth Sciences / Ecosystem / Environmental factors / GDP / Gross Domestic Product / Human diseases / Human population density / Human populations / Humans / Infant mortality / Infants / International aspects / Medicine and Health Sciences / Mortality / Mosquito Vectors - physiology / Mosquito Vectors - virology / Mosquitoes / Normalized difference vegetative index / Population Density / Poverty / Precipitation / Pregnancy / Probability theory / Risk factors / Social Sciences / Socioeconomic Factors / Temperature / Transmission / Tropical diseases / Vector-borne diseases / Virus research / World health